


A Dream

by LazyAdmiral



Series: A Fantasy [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Dream Sex, F/M, Masturbation, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27540535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyAdmiral/pseuds/LazyAdmiral
Summary: It’s a dream. He knows as much the moment he opens the door; only the Fade could be so bittersweet as to grant him that which he wishes for most at the very moment he has lost it. Still, as he closes the door to his new quarters, he knows he’ll take whatever is offered to him. He is learning to bury his pride.~In Montsimmard, Loghain dreams of Amell.
Relationships: Female Amell/Loghain Mac Tir, Loghain Mac Tir/Female Warden, Loghain Mac Tir/Warden
Series: A Fantasy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012995
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	A Dream

It’s a dream. He knows as much the moment he opens the door; only the Fade could be so bittersweet as to grant him that which he wishes for most at the very moment he has lost it. Still, as he closes the door to his new quarters, he knows he’ll take whatever is offered to him. He is learning to bury his pride.

Amell lingers by the window, seemingly unaware of his arrival. In the lamplight, she looks as she did when he saw her last, watching his departure from Vigil’s Keep – stern and solemn, wearing her command like a crown hard-won. It suits her now as he thought it suited her then, making her more otherworldly than any magic could, a living monument to sheer will and perseverance.

He’s only ever seen her break once.

Hours after the final battle in Denerim, the Archdemon’s corpse not even yet cool, he found her in a quiet alleyway, bloodied but victorious and sobbing hard enough to break even the most hardened heart. He didn’t ask what for, likely as not she hadn’t even known herself. It didn’t matter. He might not have known the details of every battle, the cost of every life, but he knew that weight, grief and relief becoming two sides of a knife’s edge. He didn’t remember reaching out, only the shuddering gasp of her breath, the shaking of her shoulders as he held her up, held her close and gave her somewhere to lean, if only for a moment.

After everything, he could give her that, if nothing else.

He knows now, as he could not admit to himself then, that he is in love with her. That the begrudging respect that came even as he fell to his knees at the Landsmeet has grown into admiration, loyalty, and more. Yet again, he finds himself enamoured with someone who cannot ever be his.

Once, he almost thought she might… but no. Redcliffe feels like a lifetime ago, and even his memory cannot hold onto the fleeting warmth of her lips forever. One kiss, a moment of gratitude for doing what was necessary to keep them both alive, and then she was gone, slipping away like smoke and shadow.

The woman at the window – who is not Amell, can never be Amell, and yet he will pretend – turns to him at last, perhaps sensing his thoughts turning to melancholy and swaying from the purpose of her visit. Her advance is certain, steady, her eyes warm and her smile a secret. It is always this way when her shadow visits him in dreams – as if this were some silent agreement between them, a hidden truth neither of them can confess to in daylight. 

It is better this way, he tells himself. He has no talent for words, at least not for softer things, and here, she does not ask for them. When she reaches him, she looks up with wide eyes, a mirror of a moment on another night so long ago, and her kiss, when it comes, is as gentle as the evening breeze.

He has wondered, more than is wise, on what would move her to passion. He’s seen the heat of her in battle, her fury as sharp and biting as the lightning she casts, knows her strength and defiance are near boundless. But he wants to feel her fire, to know how she might turn it on him and make him burn for her. Within moments, he is pushing forward, pressing her back against the stone wall of the quiet room, daring her to meet him. And meet him she does, because he cannot ever imagine her stepping back from a challenge. The soft sound of surprise and desire in her throat is the sweetest sound he knows, before soft lips part, her teeth sharp and mouth hot as she pours into him and devours him, no longer shy and demure but demanding surrender without quarter. And he gives – he gives and gives and is no less for it because there is fire in him now, a fire he thinks most days has abandoned him, except for here, where her clever, commanding hands pull and push at his armour, shirt, breeches until he is bare for her eyes only.

In the waking world, there were few who ever saw him thus, and Amell was never one of them. He was too conscious, then, of her youth and his age, of the scars the marked his years as surely as the rings of a tree, of the grey starting to fleck the dark hair on his hair and body. He is not a young man any more, and yet here, she does not mind it, her touch both gratifying and enticing as she cards fingertips through the hair on his chest, her touch dancing over the breadth of his shoulders as he undresses her with care.

As for Amell, Loghain has tried for the longest time to avoid imagining her unwrapped from her layers of mail and leathers. But he is only a man and in the privacy of his own mind, he will allow himself this small weakness.

He knows she grew up in a Circle, and the life of a Grey Warden is a recent thing to her. The strength she carries in her bearing has been gained in battle, and there were no shortage of pitfalls and stumbling blocks along the way. There would be a scar across her side, a memento from a genlock at Ostagar, along with another near her collar from a crossbow bolt. A dozen or so small scars on her left leg from a hidden trap near Denerim’s docks, and sundry other tiny nicks and scrapes from training and fighting and surviving until the next day. But beyond these things, he has to guess – do the freckles he sees scattered over her cheeks and arms go further, reaching over her shoulders, the planes of her back and chest? Does she still carry any of the softness of a life spent in study? He thinks she might, remembers the little indulgences she allows herself when she thinks no one is looking – fresh flowers in a vase by her window and a small box hidden in the bottom of her desk drawer, filled with small buttery biscuits from a bakery in Denerim.

Those small things give him a strange sort of comfort; tiny glimmers of sweetness when he knows she has every cause to be bitter. Not for the first time, he wonders what she was like before war made her sharp.

As he lays her down against the straw mattress of his cot, he vows to press his lips to every single mark he finds, a task he commits to with all the diligence and determination he once gave to his country. He lets his senses fill with the salt and heat of her, her hitched breaths and quiet gasps filling his ears. Her hands, calloused and strong, are brands against his shoulders and back, nails scraping against the skin and he groans against her belly, his hips hitching against her thigh of their own accord.

He wants, so much so sometimes it almost pains him. But he will wait – there is something he wants more than his own pleasure first.

He never considered himself a man of faith; he believes in the Maker but sees little point in begging for the forgiveness of such a fickle god. But as he sinks to his knees before her parted thighs, he can think of nothing other than worship. He’s proud in many things, but not in this; if she asked him to kneel, to beg for her touch, he’d do it, happily.

Maker, he’d probably ask for more.

He feels the groan that catches in her throat as he presses his lips to her heat, and he echoes it, the scent and taste of her surrounding him. His approach varies as he wonders at her preferences – would she let him tease her, torment her and bring her to the edge, ready and wanting? Or would she demand he bring her over, again and again until she was satisfied? He aches for her, groin tight and near painful but he yearns for the thrill of her pleasure against his tongue, to hear that breathless cry as she bows against him. He wants to bring her to her peak and hold her there, trembling and perfect, to burn the image into his mind, a talisman against cold daylight and colder nights.

When she whispers his name, he lets himself forget, for a moment, that none of it is real.

But the dream is fading fast, and he can already feel the rough scratch of the woollen blanket against his skin even as he tries to cling to the moment. Eyes still closed, he kicks down the covers with little care for the cool, morning air, pushing his nightclothes far enough out of the way to take himself in hand. With the dream of Amell still in his ears, on his tongue, it barely takes a moment before he’s gasping his release into the quiet dawn.

His breathing is harsh and too loud in the empty room, and before he even opens his eyes, the creeping sunrise begins to glimmer through his closed lids. Body spent and satisfied, he is now left with the hollow emptiness that he knows will linger the rest of the day.

Perhaps he should have followed her, that night. Or said something the day he received the letter from Weisshaupt. He would think himself a coward if he didn’t remember why he stayed silent.

She is a legend, a hero of the people. He’d held that mantle once, and he had squandered it; she deserves better than to have her tale tarnished with connection to his. Amell, with her fire and ice and command, and the wildflowers she picked near camp because she liked their colour. Amell, and her quiet questions and thoughtful, clever answers, with another map she saw and picked up, thinking of him, and sweets shared with a conspiratorial whisper, a secret kept between them. Amell, Commander of the Grey of Ferelden and Hero of the Fifth Blight, who has the eyes of the world on her watching for every misstep and false move, and who let an old soldier hold her in the shadows of victory and watch her weep.

He will not be another wire-trap designed to catch her out. No matter his own feelings, his respect and loyalty to her is greater than that.

The resolution does little to fill the hole in his chest. No matter. He has carried worse burdens, and while he has little in the way of optimism with regards to how long his tenure as a Grey Warden will last, he knows as certainly as he knows himself that he has strength enough for this.

He has failed enough in his life. And though it pains him to do it, he will not fail her too.

**Author's Note:**

> *walks in a year late with Starbucks*
> 
> Oops.
> 
> So I've been back on a writing kick lately and wanted to finally get around to finishing the companion piece to this... only to find I hated what I wrote before and so I started from scratch again. So as ever, this is un-betad although I've done my best to check for errors/inconsistencies. If you enjoyed it (if there are bits I could improve on), please let me know!


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